The most celebrated study that claims to show brain damage is the rhesus
monkey study of Dr. Robert Heath, done in the late 1970s. Their results
were published under the title, Marijuana and Health in 1982. Heath's
work was sharply criticised for its insufficient sample size (only four
monkeys), its failure to control experimental bias, and the misidentification
of normal monkey brain structure as "damaged". Actual studies
of human populations of marijuana users have shown no evidence of brain
damage. For example, two studies from 1977, published in the Journal of
the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed no evidence of brain damage
in heavy users of marijuana. That's not the sort of thing you'd expect
if the AMA thought marijuana damaged the brain.

2. Can Marijuana damage reproductive organs

This claim is based chiefly on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who experimented
with tissue (cells) isolated in petri dishes, and the work of researchers
who dosed animals with near-lethal amounts of cannabinoids (i.e., the
intoxicating part of marijuana). Nahas' generalisations from his petri
dishes to human beings have been rejected by the scientific community
as being invalid. In the case of the animal experiments, the animals that
survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30 days of the end of
the experiment. Studies of actual human populations have failed to demonstrate
that marijuana adversely affects the reproductive system.

3. Marijuana is a "gateway" drug

This is one of the more persistent myths. A real world example of what
happens when marijuana is readily available can be found in Holland. The
Dutch partially legalised marijuana in the 1970s. Since then, hard drug
use-heroin and cocaine-have DECLINED substantially. If marijuana really
were a gateway drug, one would have expected use of hard drugs to have
gone up, not down. This apparent "negative gateway" effect has
also been observed in the United States. Studies done in the early 1970s
showed a negative correlation between use of marijuana and use of alcohol.
A 1993 Rand Corporation study that compared drug use in states that had
decriminalised marijuana versus those that had not, found that where marijuana
was more available-the states that had decriminalised-hard drug abuse
as measured by emergency room episodes decreased. In short, what science
and actual experience tell us is that marijuana tends to substitute for
the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and heroin.

4. Marijuana hurts the immune system

Like the studies claiming to show damage to the reproductive system,
this myth is based on studies where animals were given extremely high-in
many cases, near-lethal-doses of cannabinoids. These results have never
been duplicated in human beings. Interestingly, two studies done in 1978
and one done in 1988 showed that hashish and marijuana may have actually
stimulated the immune system in the people studied.

5. Marijuana is more addictive than tobacco

Smoked marijuana contains about the same amount of carcinogens as does
an equivalent amount of tobacco. It should be remembered, however, that
a heavy tobacco smoker consumes much more tobacco than a heavy marijuana
smoker consumes marijuana. This is because smoked tobacco, with a 90%
addiction rate, is the most addictive of all drugs while marijuana is
less addictive than caffeine. Two other factors are important. The first
is that paraphernalia laws directed against marijuana users make it difficult
to smoke safely. These laws make water pipes and bongs, which filter some
of the carcinogens out of the smoke, illegal and, hence, unavailable.
The second is that, if marijuana were legal, it would be more economical
to have cannabis drinks like bhang (a traditional drink in the Middle
East) or tea which are totally non-carcinogenic. This is in stark contrast
with "smokeless" tobacco products like snuff which can cause
cancer of the mouth and throat. When all of these facts are taken together,
it can be clearly seen that the reverse is true: marijuana is much SAFER
than tobacco.

6. Legal marijuana would cause ill social hazards

Although marijuana, when used to intoxication, does impair performance
in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of the effect of marijuana
on the automobile accident rate suggest that it poses LESS of a hazard
than alcohol. When a random sample of fatal accident victims was studied,
it was initially found that marijuana was associated with RELATIVELY as
many accidents as alcohol. In other words, the number of accident victims
intoxicated on marijuana relative to the number of marijuana users in
society gave a ratio similar to that for accident victims intoxicated
on alcohol relative to the total number of alcohol users. This finding
has been supported by other research using completely different methods.
For example, an economic analysis of the effects of decriminalisation
on marijuana usage found that states that had reduced penalties for marijuana
possession experienced a rise in marijuana use and a decline in alcohol
use with the result that fatal highway accidents decreased. This would
suggest that, far from causing "carnage", legal marijuana might
actually save lives.

This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership for a Drug-Free
America. A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that purported to show, first,
a normal human brainwave, and second, a flat brainwave from a 14-year-old
"on marijuana". When researchers called up the TV networks to
complain about this commercial, the Partnership had to pull it from the
air. It seems that the Partnership faked the flat "marijuana brainwave".
In reality, marijuana has the effect of slightly INCREASING alpha wave
activity. Alpha waves are associated with meditative and relaxed states
which are, in turn, often associated with human creativity.

8. Marijuana is more potent today than in the past

This myth is the result of bad data. The researchers who made the claim
of increased potency used as their baseline the THC content of marijuana
seized by police in the early 1970s. Poor storage of this marijuana in
un-air conditioned evidence rooms caused it to deteriorate and decline
in potency before any chemical assay was performed. Contemporaneous, independent
assays of unseized "street" marijuana from the early 1970s showed
a potency equivalent to that of modern "street" marijuana. Actually,
the most potent form of this drug that was generally available was sold
legally in the 1920s and 1930s by the pharmaceutical company Smith-Klein
under the name, "American Cannabis".

9. Marijuana impairs short-term memory

This is true but misleading. Any impairment of short-term memory disappears
when one is no longer under the influence of marijuana. Often, the short-term
memory effect is paired with a reference to Dr. Heath's poor rhesus monkeys
to imply that the condition is permanent.

10. Marijuana lingers in the body like DDT

This is also true but misleading. Cannabinoids are fat soluble as are
innumerable nutrients and, yes, some poisons like DDT. For example, the
essential nutrient, Vitamin A, is fat soluble but one never hears people
who favour marijuana prohibition making this comparison.

11. There are over a thousand chemicals in marijuana smoke

Again, true but misleading. The 31 August 1990 issue of the magazine
Science notes that of the over 800 volatile chemicals present in roasted
COFFEE, only 21 have actually been tested on animals and 16 of these cause
cancer in rodents. Yet, coffee remains legal and is generally considered
fairly safe.

12. No one has ever died of a marijuana overdose

This is true. It was put in to see if you are paying attention. Animal
tests have revealed that extremely high doses of cannabinoids are needed
to have lethal effect. This has led scientists to conclude that the ratio
of the amount of cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (i.e.,
stoned) relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to 40,000.
In other words, to overdose, you would have to consume 40,000 times as
much marijuana as you needed to get stoned. In contrast, the ratio for
alcohol varies between 1 to 4 and 1 to 10. It is easy to see how upwards
of 5000 people die from alcohol overdoses every year and no one EVER dies
of marijuana overdoses.

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Why
should we decriminalise or legalise cannabis?

As US President Jimmy Carter acknowledged: "Penalties against
drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of
the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the
possession of marijuana in private for personal use."

Learn
how to pass marijuana drug tests. Cannabis prohibition needlessly destroys
the lives and careers of literally thousands of good people each year
in this country. More than 12,000 New Zealanders were arrested on cannabis
charges last year, and more than 133,000 New Zealanders carry criminal
records for cannabis offenses. Almost 90 percent of these arrests are
for simple possession, not trafficking or sale. This is a misapplication
of the criminal sanction that invites government into areas of our private
lives that are inappropriate and wastes valuable law enforcement resources
that should be focused on serious and violent crime.